BBC ON THIS DAY | 11 | 1959: Hovercraft marks new era in transport About This Site | Text Only 1959: Hovercraft marks new era in transport A revolutionary new form of transport which can operate on sea and land has been officially launched in the Solent, off England's south coast. The Hovercraft, which has been described as a cross between an aircraft, a boat and a land vehicle, was invented by boat-builder Christopher Cockerell. Dubbed a "man-made flying saucer", the hovercraft is propelled on a cushion of air created by its own fan power. It therefore hovers just above the waves at sea and avoids any irregular surfaces on land. Christopher Cockerell, from Lowestoft, began working on a hovercraft model in the mid-1950s. He said he first came up with the idea when he was thinking how to make a boat go faster by reducing the amount of friction caused when it travels through the water. He first tested the 'hover' theory using a cat food tin inside a coffee tin, with an industrial air blower and a pair of kitchen scales.

In 1955 he convinced the Ministry of Supply to back him but he was not able to commercially develop the product immediately as his idea had been placed on the government's secret list because of its potential benefits to the military. In 1959 Cockerell managed to get his idea removed from the secret list and formed the Hovercraft Development Company Ltd. He obtained funding from the National Research Development Council of �150,000 to develop the project. A contract to build the first Hovercraft was awarded to Saunders Roe, the flying boat firm at Cowes, at the beginning of this year. The SRN-1, an experimental model, is 29 feet long and 24 feet wide and weighs 6,600lb. Following today's launch of the SRN-1 hovercraft in the Solent, Saunders Roe announced it is now planning a prototype up to ten times as big and weighing 40 tons. The hovercraft, which has controls very similar to those in a helicopter, can reach speeds of up to 25-knots and it is hoped that at some stage in the future it will be able to cross the English Channel in as little as 20 minutes.

Christopher Cockerell; Briton Invented the Hovercraft - latimes Christopher Cockerell; Briton Invented the Hovercraft June 04, 1999 |ELAINE WOO | TIMES STAFF WRITER Christopher Cockerell, a British engineer who turned a couple of tin cans rigged to a vacuum cleaner into the Hovercraft, one of the century's more eccentric modes of transportation, has died. Cockerell, whose death Tuesday at his Southhampton home coincided with the 40th anniversary of his invention's first launch, was 88. Nicknamed the British Flying Saucer because it resembled a giant saucepan lid, the Hovercraft moves across land or water on a cushion of air. When it was launched on the English Channel in 1959, it was ballyhooed in the press as the preferred mode for water crossings. The Hovercraft never fulfilled the potential that Cockerell had envisioned, however: It was noisy, unreliable and nauseated passengers in rough seas. In Britain, it has devolved from being the pride of British maritime engineering to its dinosaur, surpassed by superior craft and the Channel Tunnel.

But, as a recent Times of London article noted, it is a stubborn dinosaur that has "steadfastly refused to do the decent thing and disappear altogether," kept alive on both sides of the Atlantic by Hovercraft hobbyists whose enthusiasm for Cockerell's quirky machine approaches cult fervor. Cockerell was born June 6, 1910, and was educated in private schools. He was trained in engineering at Cambridge University, then got a job with the electrical company Marconi. He helped devise a transmission antenna for the BBC's first television station in north London. During World War II, he participated in the development of Britain's first radar defense system. After the war, he left Marconi to build tourist boats in Norfolk. It was during this period that he began to contemplate the solution to an 80-year-old problem. Sir John Thornycroft was a British engineer who in the 1870s began to test his theory that drag on a ship's hull could be reduced if a ship had a plenum chamber--essentially an empty box, open at the bottom. He thought that if the chamber could be pumped full of air, the ship would float above the water and move faster because there would be less resistance.

He could not, however, figure out how to keep the "air cushion" from escaping from under the craft. Cockerell cast aside the plenum chamber principle, theorizing instead that if he could pump air under the vessel through a narrow slot that ran around it, the air would flow toward the vessel's center, thus forming an external curtain that would trap the bubble of air under the hull. Cockerell believed this system, which became known as a peripheral jet, would allow the boat to hover. To test his theory, the former electronics engineer raided his pantry for a coffee tin and a can of cat food and hooked them up to a reverse-flow vacuum that fed air into the tins through a hole in the base. He suspended the contraption over the weighing pan of a pair of kitchen scales. When he switched on the apparatus, it was buoyed off the floor on a pillow of air. He filed for a patent in late 1955, and the next year formed Hovercraft Ltd. In 1959, he launched the first practical air cushion vehicle, the SR-N1. It had a rubber skirt that helped contain the air cushion over rough ground or water.

This prototype crossed the English Channel in June 1959. It had a top speed of 10 mph and could not negotiate waves of more than 18 inches or land obstacles higher than a foot. Nonetheless, the successful crossing sparked interest around the world. Manufacturing began in the United States, Japan, Sweden and France, as well as in Britain. Commercial service in Britain started in the early 1960s. Cockerell was driven nearly to bankruptcy in the early years of his struggle to build the Hovercraft. He never got rich off it--"Good God, no," he told an interviewer recently. Nor did he achieve widespread recognition, although he was knighted in 1969. "He was a genius, one of those people who was never really appreciated in this country," said Gary Billings, general manager of Hovercraft America in Germantown, Wis., one of a handful of Hovercraft manufacturers in the United States. Hovercraft enthusiasts consist of a small but fervent community in the United States. About 5,000 to 10,000 Hovercraft are in operation here, used mainly for ice and flood rescues and recreation.

Hovercraft racing fans will gather in Troy, Ohio, later this month for the Hovercraft Nationals. "Star Wars" fans are flocking to fast-food outlets for toys in the shape of the Hovercraft-inspired land speeders favored by Luke Skywalker, made by Hovercraft Concepts of Miami. All have Cockerell to thank. A somewhat dyspeptic letter writer in his later years, Cockerell once complained to the London Times that British engineers and designers were accorded such lowly status and pay that the best fled to other countries. But he was not disappointed by the Hovercraft's progress four decades after he invented it, nor was his belief in the value of his profession shaken. MORE: Hovercraft History - The history of hovercraft. Hovercraft History A hovercraft, or air-cushion vehicle (ACV), is a vehicle or craft that can be supported by a cushion of air ejected downwards. It can travel over any relatively smooth surface, such as gently sloping land, water, or ice, while having no almost no contact with it. The first recorded design for a vehicle which could be termed a Hovercraft was in 1716 by Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish designer, philosopher and theologian.

His man-powered air cushion platform resembled an upside-down boat with a cockpit in the center and manually operated oar-like scoops to push air under the vehicle on each downward stroke. No vehicle was ever built, no doubt because it was realised that human effort could not have generated enough lift. In the mid-1870s, the British engineer Sir John Isaac Thornycroft built a number of ground effect machine test models based on his idea of using air between the hull of a boat and the water to reduce drag. Although he filed a number of patents involving air-lubricated hulls in 1877, no practical applications were found. Over the years, various other people had tried various methods of using air to reduce the drag on ships. Col. Melville W. Beardsley (1913-1998), an American inventor and aeronautical engineer, along with Dr. W. Bertelsen worked on developing early ACV's in the USA. It was not until 1952 that the inventor Christopher Cockerell designed a vehicle based on his 'hovercraft principle'. This was the missing link everyone else had not seen and made a commercial craft possible.

He was knighted for his services to engineering in 1969 for his work on the Hovercraft. Sir Christopher even invented the word 'Hovercraft' to describe his invention. Cockerell used simple experiments involving a vacuum cleaner motor and two cylindrical cans. He proved the workable principle of a vehicle suspended on a cushion of air blown out under pressure, making the vehicle easily mobile over most surfaces. His significant advance was developing a peripheral jet system to retain the air cushion under the vehicle. The supporting air cushion would enable it to operate over soft mud, water, and marshes and swamps as well as on firm ground. The British aircraft manufacturer Saunders Roe which had aeronautical expertise developed the first practical man-carrying hovercraft, the SR-N1, which carried out several test programmes in 1959 to 1961 (the first public demonstration in 1959), including a cross-channel run. The SR-N1 was powered by one (piston) engine, driven by expelled air, and could carry little more than its own weight and two men,and did not have any skirt at first trials.

It was found that the craft's lift was improved by the addition of a 'skirt' of flexible fabric or rubber around the hovering surface, to contain the air. The skirt was an independent invention made by a Royal Navy officer who worked with Sir Christopher to develop the idea further. The first true passenger-carrying hovercraft was the Vickers VA-3, which in the summer of 1961 carried passengers regularly along the North Wales Coast from Wallasey to Rhyl. It was powered by two turboprop aero-engines and driven by propellers. During the 1960s Saunders Roe developed several larger designs which could carry passengers, including the SR-N2, which operated across the Solent in 1962 and later the SR-N6, which operated across the Solent from Southsea to Ryde on the Isle of Wight for many years. Operations commenced on 24th July 1965 using the SR-N6 which carried just 38 passengers. Two modern 98 seat AP1-88 hovercraft now ply this route, and over 20 million passengers have used the service as of 2004.

As well as Saunders Roe and Vickers (which combined in 1966 to form the British Hovercraft Corporation), other commercial craft were developed during the 1960s in the UK by Cushioncraft (part of the Britten-Norman Group) and Hovermarine (the latter being 'sidewall' type hovercraft, where the sides of the hull projected down into the water to trap the cushion of air). In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Jean Bertin developed a hovercraft train dubbed the Aérotrain in France. His I-80 prototype established the world speed record for overland air cushion vehicles with a mean speed of 417.6 km/h (260 mp/h) and a top speed of 430 km/h (267 mp/h). By 1970 the largest British hovercraft were in service, the Mountbatten class SR-N4 model, each powered by four Rolls-Royce Proteus engines, regularly carrying cars and passengers across the English Channel from Dover or Ramsgate to Calais.

This service ceased in 2000 after years of competition with traditional ferries, catamarans, and the opening of the Channel tunnel. In 1998, the US Postal Service began using the British built Hoverwork AP.1-88 to haul mail, freight, and passengers from Bethel, Alaska to and from eight small villages along the Kuskokwim River. Bethel is far removed from the Alaska road system, thus making the hovercraft an attractive alternative to the air based delivery methods used prior to introduction of the hovercraft service. Hovercraft service is suspended for several weeks each year while the river is beginning to freeze to minimize damage to the river ice surface. The hovercraft is perfectly able to operate during the freeze-up period, however, it could potentially break the ice creating hazards for the villagers using their snowmobiles for transportation along the river during the early winter. The commercial success of hovercraft suffered from rapid rises in fuel prices during the late 1960s and 1970s following conflict in the Middle East.

Alternative over-water vehicles such as wave-piercing catamarans (marketed as the Seacat in Britain) use less fuel and can perform most of the hovercraft's marine tasks. Although developed elsewhere in the world for both civil and military purposes, except for the Solent Ryde to Southsea crossing, hovercraft disappeared from the coastline of Britain until a range of Griffon Hovercraft were bought by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. There are an increasing number of small homebuilt and kit-built hovercraft used for fun and racing purposes, mainly on inland lakes and rivers but also in marshy areas and in some estuaries. Hovercraft typically have two (or more) separate engines (some craft, such as the SR-N6, have one engine with a drive split through a gearbox). One engine drives the fan (aka the impeller) which is responsible for lifting the vehicle by forcing air under the craft. One or more additional engines are used to provide thrust in order to propel the craft in the desired direction. Some hovercraft utilise ducting to allow one engine to perform both tasks by directing some of the air to the skirt, the rest of the air passing out of the back to push the craft forward.

Hovercraft - the History and Development The word "hovercraft" was probably coined by a newspaper, or even by Christopher Cockerell himself, to try to capture the essence of the vehicle. The more accurate modern description "air-cushioned vehicle" is more similar to the German Luftkissenboot. As with any new idea it is fuelled by need, finance, and curiosity, and motivated often by the need to improve an existing product; the word development covers all this and more. In view of Vosper Thorneycroft's involvement in military hovercraft in the 1960's, it is probably ironic that they were making use of an idea patented by Mr.Thorneycroft, a boat builder in the 1870's who suggested that by pumping air under a boat of a certain design it would help to lift the hull, reducing draft and thereby the drag of the vessel would be reduced. There is a patent to this concept taken out in 1910. Later in the 1920's a Swede developed an improvement on the ice sledge by propelling it with an air propeller in such a way as to get ram airlift on his platform.

Further development was not continued. The hovercraft as we know it today has largely been credited to Christopher Cockerell, a lateral thinker of his day who, after developing crucial components for use on British radar during the war, retired to a boatyard in Norfolk, where in the interest of making a faster powerboat that would plane at lower speeds came up with a similar idea to that of Thorneycroft; what goes around comes around!!! He took the idea further by the skilful use of vectored air to make the whole vehicle hover, thereby removing the drag from any part of the hull which might have been in contact with the surface, be it land or water. It is worth mentioning at this point that I do not think Cockerell ever intended his craft to be anything more than an amphibious marine vehicle. Where insurance underwriters and others get the idea that a hovercraft is some sort of low flying aeroplane says much about their lack of understanding of the concept. At a similar time in the late 1950's a Doctor William Bertelsen in the USA was looking at alternative forms of transport in order to reach his patients when the roads were impassable.

He continued to develop various hovering vehicles and roadways for hovercraft over the next 50 years. He is probably best known for the use of fans mounted on gimbals, but as with all things it is not necessarily the product, but the marketing of it, that makes the difference to its success or failure. In the case of Cockerell with his military contacts he was able to head up a British military development group, which with some time, reluctant government funding finally produced SRN1 which successfully crossed the Channel from England to France on the eleventh of June 1959, fifty years to the day after Bleriot did the same crossing in his aeroplane. As with all things if there is the possibility of a military use money is found to further development from which civilian side-products are often developed. The Russians built a fleet of very large military craft for use in the upper Baltic, particularly useful over the ice and snow, while the Americans were later to see the military advantages of hovercraft under the Reagan administration: when they did they invested heavily in both amphibious landing craft and rigid sidewall designs as the basis of their hundred miles an hour navy.

But as with most things political, the military investment is usually in proportion to the perceived threat, and as the USSR was coming apart at the seams the investment was reduced. But the US Navy now has a fleet of vastly powerful air cushion landing craft, which, with their mother-ships, are now an integral part of the US Marine structure. Some very successful craft that evolved from the military development work were used on civilian ferry designs, culminating in the large cross-Channel craft. The small or light [a British government definition of under one tonne] hovercraft of today were originally built, some of them by people in the commercial industry, but mainly by people inspired by the concept. Some of the early craft can be seen at the Hovercraft Museum at Lee-on-Solent. As one would expect many of the designs were scaled down versions of the larger commercial types of the day. Largely by virtue of the commercial industry being based around Southampton Water, the largest grouping of like-minded people was in that area and so the Hover [later Hovercraft] Club of Great Britain and the Hovercraft Society were formed.

At the Browndown hovercraft event in 1976, which took place on the 10th anniversary of the first Browndown event, Christopher Cockerell told me of the reluctance of his team to the idea of fitting "a ring of Mackintosh" around the SRN1 after its cross-Channel trip. In retrospect the comment is quite interesting because the use of a flexible seal or skirt was possibly the single most important step forward in making the hovercraft a practical transport vehicle, and secondly highlights the difficulty of working with a team of aircraft engineers trying to produce a marine product for military use. As the British Isles are a relatively small area making interaction between individuals relatively easy, it is not surprising to me that craft produced by the home-builder or small company rapidly evolved and have continued to do so long after the larger military/ commercial designs appeared to consolidate their basic idea's. A lot of time was taken up in the early development of the larger commercial craft in the improvement and refinement of the skirt. Companies such as Hovercraft Development Ltd [HDL] were specifically involved in making skirts more efficient, which gave the craft improved handling. This work made use of and added to the skirt patents, which were held by the British government.

Some development on propulsion systems was also noticeable. Again, in my view, commercially the breakthrough came when the industry stopped trying to make hovering aircraft with aero-engines etc, and started to make air-cushioned boats, both amphibious and non-amphibious [rigid-sidewall]. The rigid-sidewall craft were made using Glass Reinforced Plastic [GRP] technology for use where a shallow draught boat was required, or where there was a lot of water debris, in harbours etc. As these craft were normally diesel-powered driving both lift fans and water props, it was a natural progression to build diesel-powered amphibious hovercraft - e.g. the AP 188. This rather simplifies the case for the commercial development, but against the same period of 20 to 30 years the light hovercraft had gone from craft that would barely move to ones that could race in tight formation over land and water courses in groups up to 25 at the same time at speeds in excess of 50 miles an hour. On the light leisure/commercial side, craft are being used as viable forms of transport on a day-to-day basis, as well as for just plain fun.

At the same time development on small craft often being built with limited resources has been innovative in squeezing the best results out of the often limited materials available. When they were then used competitively or in groups it was inevitable that the better concepts prevailed. Hovercraft history. The history of hovercraft and air cushion vehicles Early thoughts of air cushions The idea of using an air-cushion as a means or aid to acceleration and reduction in (hydrodynamic) drag was first explored by Sir John Thornycroft, a British engineer, who, in the 1870's built some experimental models on the basis of an air cushion system that would reduce the drag of water on boats and ships. In 1877 he successfully patented the idea and his theory was that if a ship's hull was given a concave bottom, which could be filled - and replenished - with air, it would create significant additional lift. And so the air cushion effect was born. Decades later scientists and inventors were still busy with his ideas but without any practical applications. With the coming of the airplane however, it was noticed that additional lift was obtained if the plane flew closer to land or water, creating a "funnel effect", a cushion of air.

The air lift that this funnel effect created differed with the type of wing and its height above ground. The effect was strongest if this height was between one half and one third of the (average) front-to-rear breadth of the wing. Also known as "chord". The next two decades saw little interest in air cushion development. World War 1 saw a huge increase in the development of the airplane as a military weapon and even though the ground effect was known, airplanes were designed for speed and manoeuverability in the air rather than close to the ground. But because of the many difficulties these models were developed as flying boats rather than air cushion vechicles or ground effect flyers, using the ground effect for take-off from the water. No real hovercraft came along until the 1950's. The Boeing B-1 Flying boat in 1919. (c) Airline History . Flying boats, however, are an integral part of aviation and transport history becoming popular and practical in an era when landing strips and airports were still sparse. They are still used today and many of the older models that proved their worth the world over are lovingly maintained by collectors and enthusiasts.

We highly recommend Airline History for a complete pictorial overview of Flying Boat history. Early uses of the air cushion effect 1920 - 1949 The German-built Dornier Do-X flying boat proved the reality of Thornycroft's theory in 1929, when, during an Atlantic crossing, it flew much closer to the ocean's surface than was usual in order to take advantage of the air cushion effect. The trip time was significantly reduced as a result and the aircraft's performance that much greater. The Do-X Flying Boat became quite a legend in its day, especially when it started flying around the world in 1926. Despite its enormous fuel consumption - around 400 gallons of gas per hour - it was one of the first large passenger planes capable of 150 seats. But its engines tended to overheat and, after its arrival in New York in 1931 it was refitted with American water-cooled engines. During World War 2 the Dornier factories made several Do-X flying boats for a variety of purposes, from transatlantic mail carriers to bombers.

(For more detailed information on Dornier's Do-X see also Dafkurse (D), Aviation Posters , EADS (D), Avions-Legendaires (F) articles.) Many flying boats were built during this era, and they formed the forefront and backbone of many aviation routes across the world, especially on the long haul destinations. The Russian Sikorksy proved exceptionally talented at manufacturing flying boats and many airlines ordered their planes from his factories. The military are always at the forefront in taking advantage of technological developments, and so it was with the air cushion effect. Another decade later, for example, during World War 2, scouting aircraft made good use of the air cushion effect to extend their reconnaissance flights. Dornier's Do-X Flying Boat The Do-X at rest in Rio de Janeiro's harbour with Sugarloaf Mountain as backdrop. (c) EADS . The first real hovercraft - 1950 to 1960 The successful use of the air cushion effect was not lost on engineers after World War 2 was over and in the early 1950's British, American and Swiss engineers started to rethink Sir John Thornycroft's problem.

The Englishman Christopher Cockerell, commonly seen as the father of the hovercraft, being retired from the army, settled into boat building where he soon got captivated by Thornycroft's problem of reducing the hydrodynamic drag on the hull of a boat by using some kind of air cushion. His theory was that, instead of using the plenum chamber - an empty box with an open bottom as Thornycroft had devised - air was instead pumped into a narrow tunnel circumnavigating the entire bottom, it would flow towards the center and form a more effective air cushion. This peripheral jet would cause the air to build up enough pressure to equal the weight of the craft and, as it would have nowhere to go, the pressure would force the craft up, clearing it off the ground altogether. Cockerell successfully tested his theory and filed his first patent in 1955. The year after he formed a company called Hovercraft Ltd. He further envisioned and partially worked out other problems of the hovercraft principle that still have to be fully exploited by modern hovercraft builders. One of these was to re-use the air for greater overall efficiency.

Thinking that his air cushion vehicles would be eminently suitable as amphibious craft he approached the British Ministry of Supply, the government's defence equipment procurement authority with his findings. Soon after, in 1956, the air cushion vehicle was classified as "secret" and a construction contract was placed with a British aircraft and seaplane manufacturer. The result was the SR.N1 in 1959. The first SR.N1 weighed four tons and could carry three men. Its maximum speed was 25 knots (1 knot = 1.15 miles or 1.85 kilometres per hour) on calm water. It had a 6-inch (15 cm) rubberized skirt to make it easier to contain the air cushion on uneven ground. Significant wear and tear of the skirt through friction with the water at high speeds made it necessary to use more durable material and a rubber and plastic mixture was developed by 1963. The length of the skirt had also been extended to about 4 feet (1.2 m). By this time the Americans, the French, Japanese and Swedes had begun to be interested in the air cushion vehicle and its possibilities and companies sprang up the world over.

As far as experimental vehicles were concerned the Soviets, in their race for technological supremacy, were as prolific as the Americans in building craft of all sizes, shapes and types. Nothing was too weird or technologically theoretical but it was built. Especially after World War 2, during the 1950's and 1960's did experimental constructions reach extraordinary proportions. Other parts were also improved on, the craft now used a gas turbine engine, and was capable of carrying a payload of about seven tons, achieving a maximum speed of 50 knots. In June 1959 the SR.N1 crossed the English Channel, exactly 50 years after Louis Bl�riot's first flight across. Christopher Cockerell's SR.N1 hovercraft - 1959. Most of these craft were never put into production, many didn't even work properly, and modern day collectors will pay large amounts to add these craft to their collections. But not only governments and their military where entranced with the hovercraft and the air cushion vehicle, commercial companies like Ford Motor Company even came up with a hovercar which it called the "Glideair" in 1959.

It was never made commercially available for a number of reasons however. Parallel invention While Cockerell was busy designing and building his hovercraft in the U.K., across the Atlantic ocean Colonel Melville Beardsley was developing an air cushion vehicle of his own in the 1950's. The skirt around the ACV platform which contains the compressed air and makes the ACV a stable vehicle is the invention of Colonel Beardsley, for example, for which patent Cockerell later paid $80,000. The modern Hovercraft would not exist without it. A gifted man of many inventions Colonel Beardsley continued to work on ACV's for the US Naval laboratory across the river from Annapolis, Maryland through the 70's, leading to the modern amphibious military craft of today. He passed away in November, 1998, at the age of 85. Hovercraft and Ram-wing Craft in the 1960's and beyond Ram-wing craft Ram-wing craft were craft based on the principle of a wing using the ground effect described above. They were first developed by American aerodynamicists in the early 1960's.

In the global technological race that was going on during the 1960's an amazing array of wing-in-ground effect vehicles were built the world over. The Russians in particular explored this principle in a myriad of craft, like the Ekranoplan (shown at the right) and its infamous Caspian Sea Monster. Although few of the craft built got beyond the experimental stage, they did show that a combination of airfoil and air-cushion technology provided enough stationary hovering capability. This lift was then transferred into forward speed. Even though it was now possible to surpass the theoretical hover speed limit of around 320 kilometers per hour (200 mph), it became clear that the air cushion would not stay in place above these speeds and another solution had to be found. The ram-wing craft did prove beyond doubt that the air cushion principle was a practical one and had advantages over wheels and other methods of transport in certain situations. Early hovercraft - sidewall craft The air cushion principle found an application in the form of a sidewall craft in 1963, reusing the plenum chamber principle of Thornycroft.

The resultant craft was not able to leave the water because it was more of a boat but by using the plenum chamber and its air cushion effect hydrodynamic drag was significantly reduced. An advantage of a sidewall air cushion vehicle over the more amphibious hovering craft is that water propellers can be used, effecting in greater steering control, especially at low speeds. Another positive effect was the greater stability of the craft as opposed to the circular skirt. Hovercraft today and in the future Early interest in hovercraft enjoyed a peak in the early 1960's as everyone jumped to take advantage of this amazing vehicle. However, by the end of the decade only the British had produced a range of feasible and practical craft. The problems inherent of the air cushion vehicle, such as Cockerell and others had foreseen, regarding steering control, noise, salt and skirt erosion, caused many countries to abandon their hovercraft development programs in favour of other, more established multi-function vehicles or to use different vehicles specialised in each terrain or function.

Since the 1970's however, and especially over the last decade, a renewed interest in the hovercraft as (passenger) transport (see Hovercraft in Use ), military transport and weapons carrier (see Military hovercraft ) and exploratory vehicle (see Hovercraft news and development ) has taken ground, solving many of these problems in their development (see Hovercraft Construction ). Technology in general made large steps forward during the past twentyfive years, enabling organisations and governments, as well as many enthusiasts (see Hovercraft Clubs ) to enjoy the hovercraft vehicle in its many forms including the very popular Remote Control model size hovercraft! (See Model Hovercraft .) As far as hovercraft and their spinoff technology is concerned the future looks ever brighter. Ram-wing craft links SIR CHRISTOPHER COCKERELL INVENTOR OF THE HOVERCRAFT The Cockerells were a talented family.

The sons of Sydney John Cockerell, a London coal merchant, and Alice neï¿½ Bennett, the daughter of a City Watchmaker, Sir Sydneyï¿½s elder brother, Theodore, was a biologist, his younger brother, Douglas, an eminent bookbinder; while Douglasï¿½s son Sydney Maurice (ï¿½Sandyï¿½), two years Christopherï¿½s senior and also a bookbinder, was a celebrated and innovative designer of marbled papers. In his youth he was always tinkering and inventing , much to the dismay of his father, whose interests were literary, not mechanical. He began his career working for the Marconi company in 1935 where he received three dozen patents, and got married soon afterwards. He worked on radar systems during the Second World War . His great invention, the hovercraft , first saw the light of day in 1953. The idea was not an immediate success, and he was forced to sell personal possessions in order to finance his research. By 1959, a prototype craft was crossing the English Channel between Dover and Calais. Cockerell was knighted in 1969 for his services to engineering.

The theory behind one of the most successful inventions of the 20th century, the Hovercraft, was originally tested in 1955 using an empty cat food tin inside a coffee tin, an industrial air blower and a pair of kitchen scales. Christopher Cockerell was initially testing out the idea that it was possible to produce a cushion of air between the bottom of the tins and the surface of the scales. Once he had established that this was possible he decided to experiment with more sophisticated models. Although his first tests were carried out on dry land his main aim was to prove that drag or friction between boats and water could be substantially reduced if the ï¿½craftï¿½ floated on an air cushion. And so the ï¿½hovercraftï¿½ came in to being. Indeed Cockerell came up with the word too, which was recently chosen to represent 1959 in the 100 words, which encapsulate the 20th century for the millennium edition of the Collins English Dictionary. Despite an interest in the arts, Christopher read Engineering at Peterhouse, Cambridge.

After Cambridge he worked for the Radio Research Company until 1935 and then for the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company from 1935 until 1951. He had an enormous capacity for invention and his father, despite reservations (he once described his son as ï¿½no better than a garage handï¿½), put up the money for his early patents . (When Sir Sydney died in 1962, aged 94, some obituaries of this great museum director and manuscript collector, friend of Bernard Shaw and T.E. Lawrence, literary executor of Thomas hardy, called him simply ï¿½grandfather of the hovercraftï¿½). During the war years Cockerell worked with an elite team at Marconi to develop radar, a development which Churchill believed had a significant effect on the outcome of the Second World War , and Cockerell believed to be one of his greatest achievements. Whilst at Marconi Cockerell patented 36 of his ideas. Cockerell left Marconi in 1950, and with a legacy left by his beloved wife Margaretï¿½s father, he and Margaret were able to purchase a small boatyard in Norfolk.

This never seemed to make money and Cockerellï¿½s mind turned back to earlier ideas. He decided to use larger models on water. Initial experiments convinced Cockerell that boats could be made to float on a cushion of air, thus reducing the effect of the water drag. After many trials he successfully designed a craft which proved his ideas were correct. He was not surprised. The modified punt he used had a special pump to blow high-pressure air down under and around the rim of the craft. A strong rubber curtain retained most of the air, hence creating lift. Cockerell had set up a company, Ripplecraft, to develop his ideas further and in 1955 he eventually convinced the Ministry of Supply to back his project. He had a hard time trying to convince the military: the Admiralty said it was a plane not a boat; the RAF said it was a boat not a plane; and the Army were ï¿½plain not interestedï¿½. The irony is that it has been the Marines who have taken the hovercraft most seriously, with over 100 giant craft now in use in America and 250 in the Soviet Union, many used in recent conflicts.

Sir Christopher Cockerell and helper testing concept left and hovercraft portrait right. In these early days Cockerellï¿½s idea was patented and immediately put on the secret list. Nothing happened and Cockerell became increasingly agitated. Eventually, in 1958, after declassification, the National Research Development Council (NRDC) funded the design and construction of SR.N1 ï¿½ the worldï¿½s first man-carrying amphibious hovercraft. Saunders Roe, the flying boat firm at Cowes on the Isle of Wight , were given the contract, and the firm, under Cockerellï¿½s guidance, worked avidly on the 20ft craft dubbed the ï¿½flying saucerï¿½. Ahead of schedule on 31st May 1959, the seven-ton craft flew, only eight months after the commencement of design work. But it was not until 11th June that she made her first public appearance in front of the worldï¿½s press. Such was the interest in this new form of transport that the press refused to leave until she was demonstrated in the water.

Within weeks, on 25th July she made a crossing of the English Channel, from Calais to Dover, with Cockerell aboard as human ballast, on the 50th anniversary of the first aeroplane crossing of the Channel. Cockerellï¿½s dream had become a reality. Since then hovercraft carried over 80 million people and 12 million cars across the Channel and were in continuous service for over 30 years before their retirement in October 2000. Besides hovercraft he is attributed with the invention of wave power in the late 1970s, hovertrains and sidewall hovercraft (catamarans). Although Cockerell disagreed with the way the NRDC proceeded with hovercraft production, and in 1966 resigned from the board of Hovercraft Development, today hovercraft are enjoying a renaissance. Cheaper, quieter diesel engines, new construction materials and advanced skirt design mean that a hovercraft today is the same price as one 30 years ago.

With developing countries having the greatest need for hovercraft, with shallows, coral reefs, mud flats, no ports and unprepared beaches, hovercraft are coming in to their own On the last weekend in May 1999 the hovercraft industry launched Hovershow ï¿½99 ï¿½ the biggest show since 1966. Visitors were impressed by how the hovercraft has become a viable and versatile workboat and export sales in the year 1998-9 reached ï¿½20m. Recent sales have been to Canada for coastguards, to Lithuania as crew boats, to Hong Kong for fishery patrols, to Nigeria for oil crew boats, to Finland for coastguards to be used on ice and to Sri Lanka for military purposes. As Cockerell said, ï¿½Hovercraft will always be around ï¿½ you canï¿½t un-invent something!ï¿½ During the course of the weekend the 40th anniversary of the first flight of the hovercraft was celebrated, and Cockerell sent his best wishes but was too frail to attend. On the Monday a flypast was staged in his honour.

He died the following day, with more patents to his name than he had years. The inventor of the hovercraft, died on the 40th anniversary of its launch at Hythe in Hampshire. Nï¿½ en Grande-Bretagne en 1910, Christopher Cockerell, lï¿½homme qui allait donner des ailes aux bateaux en inventant lï¿½aï¿½roglisseur, manifesta trï¿½s tï¿½t ses dons dï¿½innovateur. Par exemple le jour oï¿½ il tenta de transformer la machine ï¿½ coudre de sa mï¿½re en moteur ï¿½ vapeur ! Ou lorsquï¿½il mit au point ï¿½ lï¿½ï¿½cole, un ï¿½bricolageï¿½ capable de recevoir la BBC. Ou, chez lui encore, quand son pï¿½re dut revenir trï¿½s vite sur la proposition quï¿½il lui avait faite pour le stimuler : 10 livres sterling par invention trouvï¿½e.

Tout son patrimoine y serait passï¿½ ! Aprï¿½s avoir dï¿½crochï¿½ son doctorat ï¿½ Cambridge, il dï¿½bute sa carriï¿½re chez Marconi. Lï¿½armï¿½e sï¿½duite la premiï¿½re Cï¿½est en 1955 quï¿½il dï¿½pose le premier brevet qui allait donner naissance ï¿½ lï¿½Overcraft. Un type dï¿½embarcation dont il est presque inutile de dire quï¿½il bouleversa les pratiques de traversï¿½e maritime. Des dizaines de millions de passagers ont empruntï¿½ ce moyen rapide et confortable de traverser les mers.

Au plan militaire, les armï¿½es anglaises, russes et amï¿½ricaines, pour ne citer quï¿½elles, ont dï¿½pensï¿½ des fortunes pour sï¿½ï¿½quiper de ce moyen de transport jugï¿½ stratï¿½gique. Christopher Cockerell ne prit sa retraite dï¿½innovateur quï¿½ï¿½ lï¿½ï¿½ge honorable de 87 ans. Loin de se considï¿½rer comme un inventeur gï¿½nial, il sï¿½est toujours simplement prï¿½tendu ingï¿½nieur. ï¿½Un ingï¿½nieur peut-ï¿½tre un peu originalï¿½, avait-il prï¿½cisï¿½ un jour. The ultimate Robot Boat. Solarnavigator uses an advanced SWASSH hull as the platform to mount the world's first autonomous circumnavigation. A successful expedition could pave the way for improved safety at sea. This website is copyright ï¿½ 1991- 2013 Electrick Publications.

All rights reserved. The bird logo and names Solar Navigator and Blueplanet Ecostar are trademarks ï¿½. The Blueplanet vehicle configuration is registered ï¿½. All other trademarks hereby acknowledged and please note that this project should not be confused with the Australian: 'World Solar Challenge'ï¿½which is a superb road vehicle endurance race from Darwin to Adelaide. Max Energy Limited is an educational charity working hard to promote world peace. History of the Hovercraft - Gizmo Highway Technology Guide Zeppelin!: Germany and the Airship, 1900-1939 A hovercraft is a vehicle that is supported on a cushion of air. It is able to traverse many different types of terrain on land and can also travel on water. The hovercraft was invented in 1952 by the British inventor Sir Christopher Cockerell, who was knighted for his services to engineering in 1969. By simple experiments involving a vacuum cleaner motor and two cylindrical cans he proved the workable principle of a vehicle suspended on a cushion of air blown out under pressure, making the vehicle easily mobile over any surface.

This would enable it to operate over soft mud, water, and marshes and swamps as well as on firm ground. The British aircraft manufacturer Saunders Roe developed the first practical man-carrying hovercraft, the SR-N1, which carried out several test programmes in 1959 to 1961 (the first public demonstration in 1959), including a cross-channel run. It was found that the craft's lift was improved by the addition of a 'skirt' of flexible fabric or rubber around the hovering surface, to contain the air. The SR-N1 was powered by one [piston] engine, driven by expelled air, and could carry little more than its own weight and two men. The first true passenger-carrying hovercraft was the Vickers VA-3, which in the summer of 1961 carried passengers regularly along the North Wales Coast from Wallasey to Rhyl. It was powered by two turboprop aero-engines and driven by propellers. During the 1960s Saunders Roe developed several larger designs which could carry passengers, including the SR-N6, which operated across the Solent to Ryde on the Isle of Wight for many years.

By 1970 the largest British hovercraft were in service, the 'Mountbatten class' SR-N4, regularly carrying cars and passengers across the English Channel from Dover to Calais. This service ceased in 2002 when the Channel tunnel took over the fast transit of cross-channel traffic. The commercial success of hovercraft suffered from rapid rises in fuel prices during the late 1960s and 1970s following conflict in the Middle East. Alternative over-water vehicles such as hydrofoils (marketed as the Seacat in Britain) use less fuel and can perform most of the hovercraft's marine tasks. Today hovercraft are manufactured all over the world for both civil and military purposes as well as small pleasure craft. While hovercraft service in Britain has declined in recent years (especially since the channel service was dropped in 2002) there still are some AP188-100 services running regularly to the Isle of Wight, as well as a range of Griffon Hovercraft used by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.

There are an increasing number of small homebuilt and kit-built hovercraft used for fun and racing purposes, mainly on inland lakes but also in marshy areas and in some estuaries. Hovercraft typically have two (or more) separate engines. One engine - called the impeller - is responsible for lifting the vehicle by forcing air into the skirt. One or more additional engines are used to provide thrust in order to propel the craft in the desired direction. Christopher Cockerell and the History of the Hovercraft By Mary Bellis Updated August 17, 2016. A hovercraft is a vehicle supported on a cushion of air supplied by a powered fan mounted on the craft. The hovercraft was invented by Christopher Cockerell in 1956. The theory behind one of the most successful inventions of the 20th century, the Hovercraft, was originally tested in 1955 using an empty KiteKat cat food tin inside a coffee tin, an industrial air blower and a pair of kitchen scales. Sir Christopher Cockerell developed the first practical hovercraft designs, these led to the first hovercraft to be produced commercially, the SRN1.

Cockerell's idea was to build a vehicle that would move over the water's surface, floating on a layer of air. This would reduce friction between the water and vehicle. To test his hypothesis, he put one a smaller can inside a larger can and used a hairdryer to blow air into them. The downward thrust produced was greater when one can was inside the other rather than air just being blown into one can. Background Cockerell was born in 1910 in Cambridge, where his father, Sir Sydney Cockerell, was a museum curator. Christopher Cockerell went to the primary school of St. Faith's. He studied at Gresham's School in Holt, Norfolk. He matriculated to Peterhouse, Cambridge, to read mechanical engineering and was tutored by William Dobson Womersley. He later returned to Cambridge to study radio and electronics. Cockerell worked for the Radio Research Company until 1935 and then for the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company from 1935 until 1951.

During the war years, Cockerell worked with an elite team at Marconi to develop radar, a development which Churchill believed had a significant effect on the outcome of the Second World War, and Cockerell believed to be one of his greatest achievements. While at Marconi, Cockerell patented 36 of his ideas. Hel was knighted for his achievement in 1969. The Hovercraft It occurred to Cockerell that if the entire craft were lifted from the water, the craft would effectively have no drag. This, he hoped, would give the craft the ability to attain a much higher maximum speed than could be achieved by the boats of the time. Cockerell's theory was that instead of just pumping air under the craft, as previous inventors had, if the air were to be instead channelled to form a narrow jet around the perimeter of the craft, the moving air would form a momentum curtain, a wall of moving air that would limit the amount of air that would leak out. This meant that the same cushion of high-pressure air could be maintained by a very much smaller engine; and for the first time, a craft could be lifted completely out of the water.

He tested his theories using a vacuum cleaner and two tin cans. His hypothesis was found to have potential, but the idea took some years to develop, and he was forced to sell personal possessions to finance his research.

Question: Who invented the hovercraft in 1959?
Answer: Christopher Cockerell.